


Walking on Clouds

by m2d2tumblr



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Diego Hargreeves is Confused, Fluff and Humor, Klaus is kinda exasperated, M/M, Not Beta Read, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, The apocalypse was avoided without the time travel at the end of ep 10, The house never collapsed and Grace Hargreeves didn’t die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-11-27 13:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18194987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m2d2tumblr/pseuds/m2d2tumblr
Summary: “Wherein Diego keeps finding Klaus floating in precarious situations and no one believes him, least of all Klaus.”





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This will be my first multi-chapter fic, so please be kind! 
> 
> It’s un-beta’d and un-edited by anyone other than me, so constructive criticism is appreciated! 
> 
> If you like it please leave a kudos and a comment!
> 
> Thank you!

It’s a month and a half after the apocalypse-that-never-was and Diego can say that the Umbrella Academy is slowly getting to know each other again. They’re all back in their childhood home and it would almost be like old times if not for the (wonderful) lack of their father and the somewhat subdued and (unacknowledged) lack of Pogo. 

Still, he thinks, they’re all happier in certain ways then they were before, and definitely more calm than when they first started living together. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows either, they’re still a bunch of traumatized adults that never got over their childhood, nor over the issues exasperated by their abilities. Still, in what’s been a long time, Diego feels like they might slowly, excruciatingly slowly, be getting better. 

In all the time they’ve been together, they’ve managed to build a routine. One which focuses on spending time together and building better relationships. Diego feels like he’s seen more of his siblings in these past couple of weeks than he did in the past thirteen years. But with living in one house together as adults, they’ve also understood the importance of some alone time. 

It’s why Vanya and Allison still work on maintaining their careers, though they’ve had to take breaks due to their unique situations (and by that Diego means learning to deal with Vanya’s apocalyptic powers and Allison’s throat issues). He has no idea what his brothers do in their free time. He knows that Klaus has not gone back to his drug habit (and no, that does not lift any weight off his shoulders at all). He’s also seen Five come back to the house from wherever it is that he goes to at random times. He also always has a cup of coffee in his hand; he seems to have made it his life’s mission to try every coffee place in the whole city. As for Luther, the less Diego knows about him, the better. 

And himself? Well, the streets aren’t going to protect themselves are they?


	2. Sleeping in the Spotlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from: Talking in your sleep by The Romantics

The first time it happens, it’s after one of his nights out in the city. He’s been patrolling the city, like always, only this one has been less eventful than usual. He’s come home after a long night of waiting and walking and a whole lot of nothing. As much as he’s glad that no one was getting hurt enough to require help, he’d been itching for a fight. The past couple of days had been spent working with Vanya on increasing her control over her abilities. They’d all been taking turns, hoping that five heads would be better than one. And it had been working, except it also meant that when Diego was working with Vanya, he didn’t have the chance to do anything to work of his excess energy. 

And so, he’d finally found some time to go out on a patrol, only to come back to house tired and just as jittery as when he’d left. All he’d wanted at that point was a shower and some sleep – and maybe a spar with Allison or Luther. Instead what he got was a heart attack. 

As he entered the great room, Diego realized that perhaps he should make less noise. Klaus has been using the room as a place to sleep rather than his old bedroom, less nightmares Klaus had told him. Thus the chances were high that Klaus would be asleep on the sofa today as well. So as Diego crept closer to the center of the room, he took care to stay as silent as possible. He could make out a figure laying under a patchwork quilt on the middle sofa. Turned with his back towards Diego, facing the backrest of the sofa, Diego heard Klaus mumbling lightly in his sleep. As far as he can tell it’s not a nightmare, still, just to make sure he walked up to the sofa and leaned closer. 

Diego’s unable to stop a smile from spreading on his face, Klaus was pretty cute when he was sleeping. (Though to be fair, Klaus was pretty cute at all times, but that’s not here or there.)

As peaceful as Klaus looks sleeping on the sofa, it’s a hot night, even Diego is sweating in his usual gear, Klaus must be suffocating underneath that heavy quilt. So, Diego pulls the multipatterned fabric off Klaus’s face and lowers it to his waist. And in his distracted gaze, Klaus is sleeping in his mesh shirt that leaves little to the imagination, he almost fails to notice the space between Klaus and the couch. Almost. 

“What the fuck!?” in his surprise he pulls the blanket straight off Klaus, which combined with his shout, manages to both wake Klaus and attract Five’s attention, who seems to have just been walking into the house if the coffee in his hand is any indication. (Seriously, just what does his younger-older-brother do all day and night?)

“Jesus Christ Diego, what the hell man!?” an irritated and sleepy Klaus looks at him from where he’s fallen on the ground. Diego may or may not have been the cause of that. Still, Diego is far more concerned with what he’d witnessed rather than any pain he may have caused accidently. 

“Y-You were floating.” He knows he looks like an idiot right now, one hand holding the blanket and the other pointing at Klaus’s still form on the ground, but again, Klaus was floating!

“ Is that what you call sleeping these days?” Klaus grumbles.

“I saw you, there was like a foot and a half of space between you and the couch” and the longer he speaks, the more irritated Klaus looks. 

“Come on Diego, what, you think I randomly gained a new power in the middle of sleeping? That doesn’t even make sense.” Diego can feel his right eye twitch. “ Maybe you should stop with your midnight patrols for a while, you seem to be hallucinating from sleep deprivation.”

And of, isn’t that rich, this coming from Klaus of all people. 

“This is what I saved this family from the apocalypse for.” Diego can feel how hard Five rolls his eyes before leaving towards their bedrooms. In the meantime, Klaus seems to have gathered himself, he grabs the blanket from Diego’s hands and goes back to his bed for the night. 

“Maybe you should follow our littlest brother and go to sleep Diego,” he mutters as he turns to face the backrest again, “you probably need the rest.”

Maybe Klaus is right, maybe Diego was just imagining things. After all, how likely is that Klaus will discover another power in the short time period that he’s been sober?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was thw first official chapter, I have a couple others planned and hopefully I will have them for you soon!
> 
> Please let me know how you guys liked it!


	3. 2.	Visions In My Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the next chapter, Finally! I’m so excited to continue this, thank you so much to everyone who read and commented and like the story. All of your positive responses made we want to get this to you as soon as I could – and since I’m new at writing multi-chaptered fics it took me longer than other probably. 
> 
> But! It’s here! Don’t forget to let me know how it was!

The next time happens, Klaus is training with Vanya. Like the rest of the siblings, Klaus had also been allotted one on one training time with their seventh sibling. And although Klaus doesn’t seem like the first choice to train anyone, the emotional and unpredictable nature of his abilities matched Vanya, and their sessions were more collaborative than strictly traditional training. Just like Vanya, Klaus didn’t have much experience handling his powers while sober, so they both worked together to understand and gain control of their respective new(ish) abilities.

Vanya had confessed to Diego, in a rare moment of openness between both siblings, that she found it more comforting to be working with someone who didn’t try to push their own coping methods on her, someone who understood what it was like to feel helpless and scared, but also wanted to overcome those fears. 

From what Diego could tell, it seemed that the siblings sessions were helping the two of them in more ways than one. Allison had commented that Vanya seemed a little more confident and controlled after all the sessions with Klaus. While Klaus seemed lighter, always a little bit more perky afterwards. The two of them didn’t really tell any of the others what they did during these appointments, but he had seen them coming out of rooms giggling, and discussion of yoga were also thrown around (and he did not imagine Klaus in various yoga positions, he didn’t). 

Klaus had also reported some success in accessing his powers. Normally, according to Klaus, his powers were something that happened to him even post sobriety, and it was only recently that he’d begun to recognize what it felt like to reach for them on purpose. 

So because both Vanya and Klaus had been feeling successful in their time together, they’d decided to step up their joint training, apparently both Allison and Five had agreed (Luther had been hesitant in exploring Vanya’s world ending abilities without some precautions but who cares what Luther thought). 

Thus, Diego found himself walking towards the basement in a mostly empty house. The only occupants currently were Klaus, Vanya, him and Mom. Allison had convinced Luther to go shopping with her in the morning, apparently Claire’s birthday was coming up (did that mean he had to get something for her? He’d never met his niece? And although he doubted it would make much of an impact, maybe he should get her a teddy or something. After all, they were supposed to be trying.) Five, like usual, had not been seen in the house since the night before last, nothing out of the ordinary for their littlest, older brother. 

As it was, he’d been voluntold to supervise Klaus and Vanya’s training, just in case something went wrong. The two of them were training in the same room they all used to spar in as children. It had been reinforced by their father after Luther put one too many holes in the drywall with his punches, making it one of the most durable places in the house. Diego’s pretty sure that room would still be standing even if the whole house collapsed around it; clearly their father was paranoid. 

Inside the room, he can see that both Klaus and Vanya are sitting across from each other on what looks like yoga mats, they’re both sitting cross legged, Klaus with his back towards the door and Diego. It looks like he’s meditating, though Vanya’s got her eyes open. She waves a shy hello at him from across the room, it looks like she’s supervising Klaus first. Which, talking about Klaus, Diego’s never seem him so still in his life. Klaus is always moving, even in his sleep he’s twitching or murmuring, never completely quiet. Seeing him like this is a bit weird. 

Since it looks like they’ve already started, he just takes a seat against the wall by the door, keeping both Vanya and Klaus in his sight. Not that he’s expecting anything to happen, they haven’t been training for that long, which is why he bought his mini knife polishing set with him (and that’s normal ok, they need to stay clean!). 

It’s only been a few minutes since he’s been in the room when Vanya speaks up. 

“Klaus, ok, I need you to try and access your abilities. Remember that feeling we talked about? I need you to get that back.” She sounds a bit nervous, he can’t tell if it’s because it’s their first time or because she expects something to go wrong, regardless it makes him pay closer attention. Klaus on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have heard her at all. She tries again, raising her voice a bit more, “Klaus, I need you to try to call Ben and make him corporal for me.”

No response. 

She looks past Klaus at Diego, a small frown on her lips, and he can tell it’s talking longer that it was supposed to. He gets up and moves closer to the pair, gesturing at her to keep going. 

She takes in a quick breath, and he comes to stand right behind where Klaus is sitting. Vanya, with more strength, sounding a little like the Vanya from the concert, says “Come on Klaus. I want to see my brother, it’s been thirteen years, and you need to share!”

And then there’s a bright light coming from Klaus, both him and Vanya turn away, the light too bright for them to look straight at Klaus. Before he can say anything, the light dims, just enough for both of them to open their eyes again. 

“Holy Shit!”

Vanya’s not one to swear casually, but when he looks towards where she is, he can’t help but agree. Standing a couple of feet in front of Klaus Diego and Klaus, just past Vanya, is none other than Ben. He looks more solid than he did at the theater. He also looks about as shocked as Diego feels. His expression slowly changes from that of shock to joy, and before Diego knows it, both him and Vanya have leapt towards their dead brother, engulfing him in their hugs. 

Diego doesn’t remember the last thing he ever said to Ben was, much less the last time he‘d hugged him before he’d died. He feels the old guilt come back up, and pushes it down. Now’s not the tome, he’s going to enjoy this moment, he’s getting the rare chance to hold his brother and he’s not going to ruin it. He can hear Vanya’s quiet but happy sobs from where she’s clutching Ben like a lifeline and Klaus…Klaus?

Diego let’s go of Ben to check on Klaus, he’d expected that Number Four would be the first one there, hugging their brother and making fun of Diego for almost crying. Instead, as Diego turns around, he can see that Klaus is still in the same position that they left him in, except he seems to be floating now (and hah! He knew he hadn’t imagined it that night, hallucinations his ass). But the complete lack of response had Diego a bit worried (a lot worried). 

“Uh Guys?” he can hear Ben trying to soothe Vanya, she’s hiccupping a little from all that crying (and oh my god he can hear Ben) so they don’t seem to hear him. 

He’s only a little worried that Klaus won’t respond as he raises his hand and places it on hi shoulder. The effect is instantaneous though, the second his hand touches Klaus’s shoulder, the glow disappears and Klaus falls forward. Diego loses his balance and he ends on the floor with Klaus sprawled across his lap. Vanya’s gasp lets him know that Ben is probably gone again (and just where does Ben go when they can’t see him? Is he still here watching them? Maybe he should ask Klaus later). 

“Klaus, Klaus!” Diego taps Klaus face, trying to get him to wake up at least he can feel him breathing against is chest, that’s the only thing stopping Diego from falling into full panic mode. Movement behind him lets him know that Vanya’s come to stand near him. The emotional reunion seems to have drained her, probably would have had the same effect on him if he hadn’t been so worried. 

“Wh – What’s going on?” to his relief Klaus wakes up, only sounding sleep drunk and not hald dead as Diego was imagining. 

“Ow! Why does my head feel like Luther stepped on me?”

Vanya and him share a look over Klaus’s head, he hasn’t moved much from his position in Diego’s lap, only now he’s clutching his head as if pressing it will take the pain away. 

“Don’t you remember Klaus?” Vanya sounds hesitant, as if Klaus won’t believe them when they tell him what happened.

Klaus sits up straighter, still fully in his lap (he’s really trying not to notice that – now’s not really the time) and looks first at Vanya and then a little over her right shoulder before his eyes light up and Diego can practically feel Klaus’s excitement as he says “OMG, you guys saw Ben! I can’t believe I missed that.” 

He spells out the OMG as sperate letters because that’s how much of an idiot he can be (Diego still likes him) “Wait, Diego you cried?” and now he has that insufferable smirk on his face. 

“Wha – I didn’t cry, that was Vanya.” He can feel the tips of his ears burning along with his cheeks. Vanya let’s out a little giggle at Klaus’s antics, she probably feels better knowing that Ben is still there (so does he). 

“Shut up Ben, stop lying when I can’t get you back for it.” It fells weird to talk to Ben when he can’t see him, but the soft smile that spreads on Klaus’s face makes all the awkwardness worth it. Before he can say anything else though, Klaus let’s out a loud yawn. 

“Seems like you tired yourself out.” Vanya, ever the responsible one, helps Klaus to his feet, freeing Diego to also get up off the floor. 

“Yea it’s weird, I don’t remember doing anything, but at the same time, I feel like I ran a marathon.”

He’s a bit distracted by the numbness in his foot when he says “All that floating probably didn’t help either.”

When he looks up two incredulous expressions are what he finds. 

“Uhh, what do you mean floating Diego dear?” Klaus has his eyebrow raised and that should not look as good as it does on him. “Ben was I floating?”

Silence as he assumes Ben answers. 

“Ben said he didn’t see any floating.”

“What? You were, I saw you. I mean it was only like two or three feet off the floor but you were floating.” He feels a little ridiculous that he has to repeat that. 

Klaus turns to look at Vanya, who looks at Diego apologetically before saying “I didn’t see anything either.”

Okay, he doesn’t like her again. 

Diego can’t believe this, seriously? “How hard is it to believe that you can float, I mean you just summoned our dead brother so that we could touch him, but a little floating is out of the realm of possibility?” How is this Diego’s life. 

Vanya just shrugs, typical, while Klaus looks amused more than anything. “Come on Diego, we’ve all seen my powers in action, and I doubt that somehow, I’m lucky enough to discover two new abilities in such a short period of time.” He puts his hands around Diego’s neck and leans on him. Klaus’s face is barely two inches away from Diego’s and it’s distracting him. 

“Now come on, I’m tires and I want a nap. Carry me upstairs.” He says it like a command, as if there’s no doubt that Diego won’t do just that. Which, Diego really can’t say no to that face, especially these days, so he does as Klaus asks. Vanya follows quietly follows behind them, a smile on her face. 

So, he’ll let the topic go for now, but now that Diego’s got confirmation that he wasn’t just imagining things, he’s sure he can catch Klaus in the acta and prove to him and their siblings that Diego knows what he’s talking about. After all, he was training to become a cop, how hard can it be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh poor Diego, if only you knew! 
> 
> Thank you everyone for reading. This chapter came out a bit different than I expected, so I tried to steer it towards a more similar fell to Chapter one, hopefully you guys enjoyed it nonetheless. 
> 
> It also ended up being a lot longer than I thought – this is the most words I’ve written to date! 
> 
> Still, please don’t forget to leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed it!


End file.
